Beltane                                                     Beltane Moon

Day II  May 4^th, 2012  Dwelling in the Woods

A good nights sleep with cool air from the sub-50 degree temps pouring over the window above my bed.  Clear and powerful dreams with one ending in the presentation to an antique dealer of a metal serving plate chased with three dragons interspersed with scrolling pattern clouds among them.  On the underside it had a small foot and inside the foot’s circle the embossed word American and the date 1531.

Over to the Octagon, a larger common facility for groups, for breakfast which consisted of cereal, toast and English Breakfast tea.  After breakfast Tom, Warren, Frank and I read, each in a different chair.  At one point Frank said, “This is beginning to look like a damned English men’s club.”  And so it did.

Stefan came in, then Charlie Haislet arrived and we slowly gathered to begin time easing our way into the subject of change and how the Woollies might respond to our changing lives.  Mark joined us a bit later.

He’d been on the phone getting his bets clear with his 90 year old father-in-law who wanted to bet this Kentucky Derby. He’s in hospice care, but still carefully analyzing the betting form.  They go to Running Aces, a harness track not from Andover, pretty regularly and have for the last 6 or 7 years.

That lives go on while we are on retreat came into sharp relief with Warren who got a phone call about his Dad.  He’d fallen twice already today. It made the decision to put him in hospice care yesterday look prescient.  While Mark took bets, he got interrupted with a call about a stepson who had returned to drinking.  That involved calls back and forth.

All of this plus the absence of Scott and Bill underline again the nature of the changes that define this particular retreat.  In an afternoon session Charlie H. talked of his move into a new condo on Grand Avenue in St. Paul and a simultaneous move to the cabin in Wisconsin.  He and Barbara say they want to emphasize soul work in this next phase, perhaps cutting back on travel and social ties.

Mark spoke of drift, a life pleasant and good, but without the artfulness and grace he wants.  He also identified qualities he wanted to have he defined as present in others of us:  Stefan’s wonderful care of his body, Frank’s caring for others, my discipline.

Stefan said he likes things as they are, that the Woollies have and continue to support the richness of life, the reason for living.  He finds his journey as a man and as a spiritual being reinforced.

Warren spoke of his journey toward retirement, “I see expansiveness ahead, a time to try many different things.  Work feels finished.”  He and Shery have given the last to caring for their parents, “Work was often a respite from care giving.”  Now, with his father in hospice care, and the last of the four parents, a major life change is in the offing for him.  And he welcomes it.

Tom told about the surprises life brings, often unpleasant and hurtful, especially when life doesn’t work out as expected or as dreamed.  Several echoed that they had not brought that pain into the group. Maybe we can do that now, someone said, the traditional male role sloughed off after work ends.

My sharing focused on a look back over the last couple of years, then projecting forward.  Over the last two years I’ve learned Latin, written a novel, chaired the Sierra Club legislative committee, become a bee keeper.  I’ve had the good fortune to grapple with a life undetermined by traditional work since my early forties, so I’ve had some time to listen to who I am outside of the day-to-day work world.

Over the next few years I’ll be revising/editing Missing, writing Loki’s Children and the Unmaking, working on a commentary for Ovid’s Metamorphoses and fleshing out my Reimagining Faith project.

Kate and I have decided to remain here in the Twin Cities and in Andover as long as possible.  Our medical care professionals are here; our home we’ve worked hard to create; our friends; the institutions we love.  We have memories here, too.

All of these facets of all our lives feed into any change we ultimately decide to make.

Day II  9:30 pm

Warren, Tom, Mark and Stefan all took a sauna before supper.  Stefan and Ode were flushed; Warren and Tom were ready to sleep.  After supper we retired to the Octagon and heard an update on Regina’s situation.  That launched a long discussion on health and health issues.  Mark noted that we’re a pretty healthy group of guys. He’s right.

We veered back on topic at some point, covering a general question, raised by Stefan, of how to organize life, how to have time for something other than duty oriented tasks.  This raised a lot of interest in how we organize our time.  Mark writes his day down with objectives and lengths of time at breakfast.  Then he discards the list.  I have blocks of time for Latin, writing, bee keeping.  Frank takes calls and organizes his day around them.

Warren and Charlie H., both peri-retiremental, wonder how they will organize their time when they finally push away from work.   One thing the Woollies can do is serve as a sounding board for how things progress.  Tom, too, is headed in that direction.

Around 9:00 we decided enough.  Tom suggested we sleep on how to organize tomorrow, perhaps starting with dream sharing.  We agreed and I walked back across the central grassy area to the Meadows where I’m about to drink a cup of peppermint tea and check for ticks.

Beltane                                           Beltane Moon

The Meadows, see picture below, has a sort of couch-bed, it looks like an oversized trundle bed.  I’ve slept on it before.  Not home, but it’ll do when I’m tired.  Which I am.

Tom and I drove up Hwy 65, a slower, but prettier way to get here than going up 35.  We stopped for lunch at the Red Ox, an old fashioned cafe near Andover, then drove through without stopping.

Once we made it to McGrath, we turned east and found the Dwelling in the Woods right where Tom’s GPS said it would be.  After paying our $300 for the weekend (includes all meals), Tom dropped me off at the Meadows and I unpacked, lay down for a bit, then wandered over to the Octagon, a larger facility where Tom, Warren, Frank and Charlie Haislet will stay.  Mark and Stefan are in a unit behind the Octagon.

Warren put his father into hospice care this morning, so we talked about that and how Warren felt.  His Dad expressed relief in knowing that his days have dwindled to months.  He’s 93 and his wife died earlier this year, so he’s ready.

At dinner we had chili and salad and a wonderful bread.  We also met Kina, a beautiful dog, a husky/terrier mix that got really lucky.  Her coat is a gray blue and she has tufts on her ears.  An eager, friendly girl Tom and I spent time playing with her.

With dinner behind us we adjourned again to the Octagon and started feeling our way into this strange retreat.  We talked about change, about what we’re talking about, about the past and the future.  I read Scott Simpson’s e-mail to the group and we discussed his ideas.

Later on we decided that we each needed to have time over the next couple of days to say how we see ourselves in the third phase, what particular shape its taking in our lives.  It’s out of that concrete reality that we can redesign the Woolly’s so it speaks to this stage of our lives.  I’m looking forward to that conversation.